EasyJet, Europe's second biggest low-cost airline, is planning to
move its entire telephone booking service to a Web-based operation
in a bid to cut costs.
Hazel WardThe move comes just a week after the airline was hit by
increases in its landing fees which went from £1.57 per passenger
to up to £6 and could rise to £7.89 per passenger during the
summer.
EasyJet said the termination of the airline's phone booking
services and the move to an entirely online sales service would cut
the cost of processing transactions and would keep the cost of
flights low.
Simon Pritchard, Web development manager at EasyJet, said the
percentage of sales carried out online rose to 86.1% in January, so
the move to an entirely Internet-based sales operation was not a
huge leap.
"Once you've achieved 86% of sales online it isn't really a huge
jump to 100%. It's not a case of someone 'throwing the big
switch'," he said.
The site has advanced significantly since it was set up two
years ago, Pritchard said, and he was confident that the existing
systems were robust enough to cope with the move.
"We've had to consider the fact that if the site was down for a
day, we could lose an important chunk of revenue, so we have very
robust disaster recovery systems in place to the effect that any
glitch would have no discernible impact on sales," he said.
The airline had also added a monitoring system which would alert
the Web team to any potential faults. "It's been a steep learning
curve but we're near the top of it," Pritchard added.
Since the site was established, EasyJet has been encouraging
customers to move to online shopping by offering its cheapest seats
and best promotions exclusively over the Internet.
hazel.ward@rbi.co.uk